David Bowie has been an enduring presence throughout Hot Press’ 40 years on Planet Rock. We talk to his ex-wife, Angie, about the making of a legend and the documentary paying tribute to one of his closest musical allies, Mick Ronson.

It may have been celebrating its fifth birthday the week the very first Hot Press hit the newsstands, but The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars was still a massively influential album in 1977.

None moreso than in punk circles where Rudi had pinched their name from the “Tony went to flight in Belfast/Rudi stayed at home to star” lines in ‘Star’; Mick Jones of The Clash was obsessed with guitar-grating Spider-in-chief Mick Ronson, and Generation X’s Billy Idol was rocking a peroxide version of Ziggy’s spiky orange feathercut.

“Bowie was the catalyst who’d brought a lot of us, the so-called Bromley Contingent, together,” notes Siouxsie Sioux. “And out of that really small group of people, a lot happened including Siouxsie And The Banshees.”

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